It is said that there were not less than fifty jacobites in the parliament of 1728. Coxe, ii. 294.
[364] The tories, it is observed in the MS. journal of Mr. Yorke (second Earl of Hardwicke), showed no sign of affection to the government at the time when the invasion was expected in 1743, but treated it all with indifference. Parl. Hist. xiii. 668. In fact a disgraceful apathy pervaded the nation; and according to a letter from Mr. Fox to Mr. Winnington in 1745, which I only quote from recollection, it seemed perfectly uncertain, from this general passiveness, whether the revolution might not be suddenly brought about. Yet very few comparatively, I am persuaded, had the slightest attachment or prejudice in favour of the house of Stuart; but the continual absence from England, and the Hanoverian predilections of the two Georges, the feebleness and factiousness of their administration, and of public men in general, and an indefinite opinion of misgovernment, raised through the press, though certainly without oppression or arbitrary acts, had gradually alienated the mass of the nation. But this would not lead men to expose their lives and fortunes; and hence the people of England, a thing almost incredible, lay quiet and nearly unconcerned, while the little army of Highlanders came every day nearer to the capital. It is absurd, however, to suppose that they could have been really successful by marching onward; though their defeat might have been more glorious at Finchley than at Culloden.
[365] See Parl. Hist. xiii. 1244; and other proofs might be brought from the same work, as well as from miscellaneous authorities of the age of George II.
[366] See in the Lockhart Papers, ii. 565, a curious relation of Charles Edward's behaviour in refusing to quit France after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was so insolent and absurd that the government was provoked to arrest him at the opera, and literally to order him to be bound hand and foot; an outrage which even his preposterous conduct could hardly excuse.
Dr. King was in correspondence with this prince for some years after the latter's foolish, though courageous, visit to London in September 1750; which he left again in five days, on finding himself deceived by some sanguine friends. King says he was wholly ignorant of our history and constitution. "I never heard him express any noble or benevolent sentiment, the certain indications of a great soul and good heart; or discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortune of so many worthy men who had suffered in his cause." Anecdotes of his own Times, p. 201. He goes on to charge him with love of money and other faults. But his great folly in keeping a mistress, Mrs. Walkinshaw, whose sister was housekeeper at Leicester House, alarmed the jacobites. "These were all men of fortune and distinction, and many of them persons of the first quality, who attached themselves to the P. as to a person who they imagined might be made the instrument of saving their country. They were sensible that by Walpole's administration the English government was become a system of corruption; and that Walpole's successors, who pursued his plan without any of his abilities, had reduced us to such a deplorable situation that our commercial interest was sinking, our colonies in danger of being lost, and Great Britain, which, if her powers were properly exerted, as they were afterwards in Mr. Pitt's administration, was able to give laws to other nations, was become the contempt of all Europe."—P. 208. This is in truth the secret of the continuance of jacobitism. But possibly that party were not sorry to find a pretext for breaking off so hopeless a connection, which they seem to have done about 1755. Mr. Pitt's great successes reconciled them to the administration; and his liberal conduct brought back those who had been disgusted by an exclusive policy. On the accession of a new king they flocked to St. James's; and probably scarcely one person of the rank of a gentleman, south of the Tweed, was found to dispute the right of the house of Brunswick after 1760. Dr. King himself, it may be observed, laughs at the old passive obedience doctrine (page 193); so far was he from being a jacobite of that school.
A few nonjuring congregations lingered on far into the reign of George III., presided over by the successors of some bishops whom Lloyd of Norwich, the last of those deprived at the revolution, had consecrated in order to keep up the schism. A list of these is given in D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, vol. ii. p. 34, whence it would appear that the last of them died in 1779. I can trace the line a little farther: a bishop of that separation, named Cartwright, resided at Shrewsbury in 1793, carrying on the business of a surgeon. State Trials, xxiii. 1073. I have heard of similar congregations in the west of England still later. He had, however, become a very loyal subject to King George: a singular proof of that tenacity of life by which religious sects, after dwindling down through neglect, excel frogs and tortoises; and that, even when they have become almost equally cold-blooded!
[367] Parl. Hist. viii. 904.
[368] Id. vii. 536.
[369] 8 Geo. 2, c. 30; Parl. Hist. viii. 883.
[370] The military having been called in to quell an alleged riot at Westminster election in 1741, it was resolved (Dec. 22nd) "that the presence of a regular body of armed soldiers at an election of members to serve in parliament is a high infringement of the liberties of the subject, a manifest violation of the freedom of elections, and an open defiance of the laws and constitution of this kingdom." The persons concerned in this, having been ordered to attend the house, received on their knees a very severe reprimand from the speaker. Parl. Hist. ix. 326. Upon some occasion, the circumstances of which I do not recollect, Chief Justice Willis uttered some laudable sentiments as to the subordination of military power.